Are You Living Ready To Respond and Live for Beyond?

In the time it takes you to blink your eyes, the space you occupy could be changed or affected forever.
The January 12th Earthquake in Haiti affected the lives of millions and killed hundreds of thousands of people in about 45 seconds. The tornados that just roared through Yazoo City in Mississippi did their deadly damage in seconds, a VRM trained Chaplain who was a denominational leader was killed alongside her driver just minutes after leaving the airport on their way to speak. (More to follow on that tragic story shortly) Those events happened so fast and so unexpectantly.

A Case in Point-

Gene Grounds and myself arrived in Colorado Springs a few weeks ago to attend a conference being hosted by military chaplains. We arrived in the late afternoon and were met by my brother Col. Andy Smith.

We were discussing if we wanted to go to the hotel first or go to dinner. We decided to give Gene a little tour of the area before going to dinner. We took him into the famous and beautiful Garden of the Gods park.

It was a gorgeous afternoon as the setting sun created beautiful colors and shadows on the whimsical and unique rock formations. Gene was having a great time getting out at various scenic points and taking pictures.

We had gotten to the end of the park and were about to drive out where the roadway lanes are narrowed by massive rock towers that squeeze the lanes together, the most famous and photographed feature is the "Balancing Rock" formation.

We got out to take a personal look and Andy and I scrambled up the rocks. We set on the foot of the formation and Gene took photos of us. Then Gene (against all advice!) decided he wanted to have his picture taken at the base of the Rock. He handed the camera to my brother and was soon sitting next to me.

My brother took the picture and just seconds later on the way down, Gene slipped and plunged into the ground, striking his body on the ground and his head on the raised concrete curb.

I thought I was going to be dealing with a concussion or massive head injury, but to my relief Gene was sitting up as we got to him with no apparent head wound. But we soon discovered his right leg was in pain and to make a long story short, in the blink of an eye his life as he knew it had changed.

His hip was fractured and it would require surgery and he is still recovering in Colorado Springs and we are hoping they will release him to fly back to DFW three weeks after the accident to continue painful rehab near home. (Please keep him lifted up in prayer)

In the blink of an eye or the matter of a few seconds or minutes lives were changed from the stories told above.

And as the heading of the blog asks- "Are you living ready to respond and live beyond?"

When Gene was hurt we were trained to jump in a do basic first aid and critical incident assessment. We got him in the car and headed to the hospital. We prayed with him and for him, we gave Verbal and Psychological First Aid, we let him know we were there for him and gave him the hope we were headed to a place where they could relieve his pain.

Living Ready to Respond is what we teach and live at VRM.

The bible tells us to "Be dressed in readiness and keep your lamp alight" Luke 12:35

(As Gene says all the time- "When the lights go out the one with a flashlight is the leader!")

BUT- what if you were gone in the blink of an eye? Are you living ready for the beyond? Do you know where you will be spending eternity?

You are not assured of tomorrow, the end of this day or even 5 seconds from now.

You may be living with blessed assurance that you are in Christ, and that is an awesome assurance and frees us up to face life and whatever comes our way, we are safe indeed!

If however you think you can make that decision to "get right with the man upstairs" in some vague future date, just remember it can all change in the blink of an eye and you may not have the time to make that decision.

Let me encourage you in a world filled with crime, violence, earthquakes, tornados, floods, fires and terrorism that you be living ready to respond here on earth and beyond!

Blessings- The Chaplain

Haiti-Land of Giants

In the tongue of the Taino Indians who once inhabited Haiti, they called their beautiful island "Ayiti" the land of mountains. A visit there will reveal the name is fitting and the island is now pronounced Haiti.
The people of modern Haiti have an incredible history and legacy that more people need to know about. Once called Santo Dominque the French turned this once lush, green island into the richest colony in the world. Renowned for its sugar and coffee and some of the best tasting fruit in the world.
But, it was built on the backs of slaves from Africa. Almost unimaginable horrors where inflicted upon the people captured, stolen, and shipped from Africa. Countless numbers of them died in horrible conditions while being shipped across the Atlantic, some hurled themselves into the harbor when they arrived, rather than live one second longer in chains. And many perished from their mistreatment in a matter of just a few years, only to be quickly replaced by another African who was just looked upon as a soul less commodity.
Finally and with great cause, the slaves revolted. Paying a huge price they defeated all comers, plantation militas, British invaders, Polish mercenaries, and the French themselves. Burning cities and plantations, clinging to the mountains, enduring all hardships and losing hundreds of thousands of people. But as the incredible General Toussiant said- "Come people let us fight those who would put us back in chains, better to die so that our brethern live free!" and despite stunning victories he was deceived and captured and shipped off to France to die a slow and miserable death in a cold stone tower.
But the Haitians faced the giants and clung to the hope of freedom and won their independence to break the Giant called slavery!
Haitians fought not just for their freedom but served with Washington agains the British at Savannah in our revolution and they fought with Bolivar in the wars of independence in South America.
They have faced sanctions and hardships imposed on them for 200 years. They have chaffed under dictators and struggled against poverty.
They have faced many giants and they are facing the Giant of destruction caused by the Jan. 12th Earthquake and they face long recovery.
Don't forget our brothers and sisters in Haiti just over an hour away by air from Miami. Don't write them off as they face their giants. Come and face the giants with them. They have a history of clinging in hope against all odds and many Giants.
God bless the Haitians and God give them the power to break all the Giants they face.

Moving in Compassion and Action in Haiti

Greetings-
It is Thursday night (Feb 18th) and I am sitting in a hotel in Conroe just north of Houston. It has been a busy week, well a busy time since the earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, over a month ago.
In VRM emails that followed that tragic event we called for a time of prayer at VRM to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit to reveal how God wanted to use VRM to serve in Haiti. In fact we called for prayer at VRM HQ as we converted the conference room to the Chapel of Compassion and Prayer for Haiti.
Amazingly, if you look back at those emails, the steps that God revealed then, is occurring now.
We felt that VRM would first have chaplains embedded in some of our responding partners- that occurred with Texas Baptist Men. We then felt that VRM would be called in to serve as counselors to assist those in trauma and grief with a start with debriefing responder teams- that is and has occurred. And eventually work with the people of Haiti and especially the children of Haiti.
That is all unfolding!
The Lord is guiding our path!
The first trip goes in tomorrow, Friday morning at 1000am through the partnership we have with Doug Stringer and his amazing organization Somebody Cares. On board that flight are directors of several other responding ministries that serve in Haiti.
In March I will be leading a VRM team of trauma and grief counselors to work with a partner who operates an orphanage and school in Haiti and has asked that we come and work with the children and staff that are in trauma.
There will be details to follow and stories to tell. But in the meantime please keep VRM teams in prayer, our responding partners in prayer and the people and children of Haiti in prayer!
Blessings to all as we move the chapel from Dallas-Ft. Worth to action on the ground in Haiti starting Feb 19th!

Update #2 Living Ready To Respond to Haiti!

The horror and suffering of the people of Haiti continues to unfold daily and the death count continues to rise. Aid is arriving in Haiti though frustration and anger continues to rise as circumstances hamper effectice delivery of that aid.

At this point Victim Relief Ministries continues to plan and prepare to response through our network of VRM volunteers and churches and partner responding agencies, organizations and ministries.

Because of this network of partnerships VRM is a conduit to get resources, materials and volunteers to a variety of channels that will get to operations on the ground in Haiti.

VRM will respond with trained and certified disaster response counselors and ministers to give spiritual and emotional care to both responders and Haitian victims. This includes Crisis and Trauma counseling, Crisis Intervention Stress Intervention training and debriefings and difussing among other chaplaincy and counselor services.

As we ramp up and things become more established in the ground we will send in more VRM Crisis Responders to serve the local communities and to help the children as we do children who are victims of crime and disasters in America.

The reminder of the best thing people can be doing is to pray. The best donation is in cash as deployment expenses need to be met and cash allows us to find the best materials or resources that need to be sent down. Be careful who you donate to.

Victim Relief Ministries has been serving victims of crime and disasters for over 10 years. We are recognized in the state of Texas by Gov. Perry himself, a member of Texas VOAD (volunteer organizations assisting in disasters), we serve with the Texas Baptist Men Disaster Response Organization, State Mass Care, Salvation Army and many more.

Please contribute to our response to Haiti at www.victimrelief.org

For those that can we are holding a time of prayer at our HQ in the "Chapel of Compassion and Prayer for Haiti" at noon central time this Thursday Jan 21,2010. If you cannot join us please join in at noon central and pray for Haiti.

Blessings as we serve as citizens of the United Kingdom of God

Living Ready to Respond and Impact Haiti

The disaster that struck Haiti in the form of a 7.0 earthquake on January 12 has left in its wake a ground zero that appears to have inflicted a human loss of up to or beyond 500,000 souls. The capital city of Port-Au-Prince has been rocked, shattered and broken apart. The National Palace is in collapsed ruins.

Responders already on the ground in Haiti are trying to cope with this massive disaster with few tools while the USA, the UN and nations around the world rush to bring in humanitarian necessities in water, food and medicine just to give injured people a chance to make it just one more day.

At Victim Relief Ministries we are in the process of finding the best and most practical way to respond. We are working with our responding ministry and organizational partners to come together and help reach people.

The first thing that is needed is for people to pray. Prayer warriors from within the VRM volunteer responder family and those in partner organizations and all churches that are reading this.

We have VRM chapters throughout Texas, Arizona and California pooling resources as they prepare to respond. We are working to send in chaplains with assessment teams and to help give support to the responders and those needing assistance and rescue.

As we live ready to respond and impact, keep us in your prayers.

Go to www.victimrelief.org to contribute funds

A Winter Tornado- A Christmas Miracle!

On Dec. 23 cold weather began to move into Texas, dropping temperatures that had been in the 70's rapidly down into the 30's and 20's. It was an explosive mix that produced 30 and 40 mile per hour gusts across North Texas that by Christmas Eve would see snow blowing horizontally.

In Lufkin, Texas on that Wednesday night; many people were relaxing or getting ready to go to bed. They were probably tired from a day of work mixed with last minute Christmas preparations. I could imagine children being pretty excited as another day ended and brought them one day closer to Christmas.

And then a storm came roaring in. And some time after 10pm people began reporting a funnel cloud to the south and north side of downtown around the Loop. Without warning this funnell cloud landed as a tornado rated between a F1-F3 and left a trail three miles long and about 400 yards wide that devastated the sub-division at Englewood, and homes and buildings along Atkinson Drive, Lubbock Street and Kit McCormick Park and destroyed the VFW Post on Ford Chapel Road. The VFW Post looked like a battle scene where the enemy shelled it until its roof caved in and its walls were battered- but the flag was still there. The local elementary school looked like an aerial attack had targeted it and taken it out with missiles and bombs.

As I drove around surveying the damaged areas I looked at homes with giant trees laying on the roofs. Trees and branches had come down on garages and crushed the cars inside. Metal Debris hung high in trees whose branches were torn and bark was stripped. One house would look fine just a few yards up from their neighbors destroyed house or between two destroyed homes. Bare fields lay exposed where pine trees once stood. People were walking with dazed looks on their faces and many were trying to dig their way out of the damaged houses and buildings to begin the road to recovery and the hope of normalcy.

As I continued to write my observation report for the Incident Command Center and to talk to people in the neighborhoods to encourage and pray with them. One thing struck me- no one was killed or seriously injured. If you were seeing the damage I was witnessing you would know how miraculous this was.

It was also a miracle that the terroist on the Northwest Airlines flight was unable to blow up the flight after lighting his weapon.

I know people say if there is a God why do bad things happen. Why are there diseases and why do people die. I know that we can debate matters of faith or no faith. I believe God prevented people from being injured or killed from the winter tornado and I have felt that at countless ground zero's.

I give thanks and praise to God because I believe He protected people in Lufkin from the "Christmas Twister!"

A Day of Infamy- A Date That is Never to be Forgotten!

History is a tricky thing. The reality of history is a strange and intriguing and as devastating or victorious over enemies or challenges as one can imagine or write about in fiction.
I am afraid that many people have little to no knowledge of US History, and many are re-writing history or revising it even as I write this.

As far as history goes it was not very long that an American President stood in front of congress to tell the American people about a devastating attack on the pacific fleet far from Washington D.C. on the island of Oahu.

A air attack by the forces of Imperial Japan had left behind battered and sunken ships, mainly battleships, hundreds of air planes were destroyed and over 3,000 military personnel and civilians were killed.

A nation could be shattered from all recovery by such a stunning victory, hope could be lost and defeat could almost be a certainty.

Almost!

President Roosevelt stood boldly, delivered the hard core truth and reality and then stirred the nation by telling them to never forget Dec. 7, 1941 a day that would live in infamy in American history and told the American people no matter how long it would take and at whatever cost- Pearl Harbor would be avenged and the American nation would rise from the bottom of Pearl Harbor to ultimate and complete victory.

So, I echo and repeat the command that our President gave in December of 1941 that this day not be forgotten. Two great symbols of World War II can be visited today in Pearl Harbor.

The memorial that is erected over the USS Arizona in which sailors are still entombed that lead us into WWII and the Battleship Missouri that carried the war to the door step of the enemy and on whose decks the enemy surrendered and ended WW II.

The Missouri fulfilled the promise that President Roosevelt gave to a shocked nation that waited in hope to hear him give the direction and guidance and course of action. Let us remember today and let us remember our troops who are fighting in lands for from our shores who brought the war to our lands on 9/11. And let us stay the course, lift up our nation, our leaders and our military as we seek to end a new type of warfare and enemy.